“Marty, if Jennifer runs into her future self it could unravel the times-space continuum and cause a paradox that would lead to the destruction of the entire universe! But that’s a worst-case scenario.” Doc Brown – Back to the Future – Part Two
In 1952, the esteemed late Anglican Bible translator J.B. Philips (1906-1982) wrote a remarkable book entitled Your God is Too Small – A Guide for Believers and Skeptics Alike (Simon & Shuster Touchstone: New York, NY, 1998). In his tome, Philips was concerned that many 20th century intellectuals could not take belief in the God of the Bible seriously. Why this was so, Philips surmised, was not because of what the Bible actually says about God, but because of the way He was conceived and presented by so many of His believers.
In the introduction Philips wrote:
“Many men and women today are living, often with inner dissatisfaction without any faith in God at all. This not because they are particularly wicked or selfish or, as the old-fashioned would say, ‘godless,’ but because they have not found with their adult minds a God big enough to ‘account for’ life, big enough to ‘fit in with’ the new scientific age, big enough to command their highest admiration and respect, and consequently their willing co-operation.”
Then, in the first part of the book, Philips discussed thirteen different “Unreal Gods” that people imagine exist. They are, he said: the Resident Policeman; the Parental Hangover; the Grand Old Man; the Lord who is Meek-and-Mild; the God of Absolute Perfection; the Heavenly Bosom; God-in-a-Box; the Director; the Second-hand God; the God with the Perennial Grievance; the Pale Galilean; the Projected Image; and Assorted other concepts. In the second section he presented what he called “An Adequate God” that he felt satisfactorily addressed modern questions from a biblical point of view.
One of my favorite lines in the book is in the section called “Grand Old Man.” In that part Philips bemoans the fact that so many young people conceive of God like an old man sitting on a throne. He was amazed that in this “modern time” how the old man image still persisted. He related a story of a high school psychology test wherein the following question was given: “Do you think God understands radar?” Now we have to keep in mind that he was writing in England in the early 1950s, so radar was still regarded as a cutting edge technological marvel. Most of the kids taking the test answered, “No,” thinking that the physics behind it was over the intellectual capacity of even God Himself. He used it to illustrate how so many people’s understanding of God was just plain too small. Now, of course, technology has progressed by multiple degrees since the 1950s. So maybe we need to ask the same question again now. Maybe we need to examine how big our God is.
Think about this. In the early 20th century, astronomers still believed the entire universe consisted of only what we now know as the Milky Way Galaxy. The Milky Way, where our solar system is located, is estimated to be about 100,000 light-years in diameter. Light travels at the speed of 186,000 mile per second in a vacuum (and it never varies). A light-year is the distance light travels over the course of one year. There are 31,557,600 seconds in a year. So light travels about 5.88 trillion miles in one year. Multiply that by 100,000 and you get the approximate size of our galaxy. What that means is that when we look at the light shining from most stars we are actually seeing what they looked like hundreds or thousands of years ago.
But things have been found to be unimaginably bigger than that. In 1923 Edwin Hubble worked at the Wilson Observatory near Pasadena, California. He was able to determine that dimly lit nebulae, once considered to be at the edge of the Milky Way (and what they thought was the universe), were actually other galaxies far beyond the Milky Way. This surprising discovery meant the universe was far bigger than anyone before then had imagined. In time astronomers found that the universe actually contains billions of galaxies many of which are much larger than the one in which we reside. That means the distances separating those island universes are millions of light-years.
Not only do we now know there are billions of galaxies in the visible universe, but that they are rapidly moving away from each other, and from us, at an increasing rate of speed. This expanding universe is great evidence (among others) for a beginning of time and space, and that it is finite. If we mentally turn the clock back, then the expansion, like letting the air out of a balloon, must have had a starting point. So most 21st century astronomers and physicists are convinced that everything (all time, space, matter, and energy) that now exists began from an infinitely small point (i.e. from nothing – just as Gen. 1:1 asserts). Telescopes, on earth or in space, like the Hubble Space Telescope, today can look at galaxies in deep space at the very edge of the universe in the visible light spectrum. Consequently, because of how long it takes for their light to travel, the astronomers are actually looking billions of years back into time, in some cases to near the beginning of the universe itself!
The recently launched James Webb Space Telescope now allows astronomers to look even further into space (and back into time). It has shown that there are even more galaxies beyond our visual range of about 46 billion light years. It has the capacity to see infrared light outside the visible spectrum that comes from galaxies even the Hubble Telescope cannot detect. Nonetheless, at this point they have not seen the farthest points in the finite universe, and probably never will. So, just how big is the universe? Most physicists and astronomers estimate the age of the universe is approximately 13-14 billion years, and is more than 92 billion light-years in diameter, based on what we can now observe. But don’t forget, it is still expanding.
So, you may be wondering, what does this little astronomy lesson have to do with how big our God is? Well, remember how the students in J. B. Philips’ illustration did not get it that God could easily understand how radar worked, probably because they themselves didn’t understand how it worked. Their minds did not have an adequate perception of just how big the True God of the Universe really is. In the last decade or so, I have enjoyed studying astronomy and astrophysics – that is to say, as far as I can comprehend them. I don’t understand all the complex mathematical equations. They look like incomprehensible scribbles on a chalk board.
In any case, as I have seen just how immense, complex, and fine-tuned the universe actually is, I am increasingly amazed by the overwhelming power of the God who created and sustains it. When I see a number like “92 billion light-years” I can only stand in awe of how much greater is the One standing outside of space watching over that enormous span. For Him all time and space are like pinpoints on a map that He sees all at once in an instant. In other words, my Infinite Triune God has gotten a whole lot bigger!
But the more amazing aspect of it all is just how small we and our little planet is in comparison to the vastness of God’s creation. Here we are, little human beings on this tiny speck of a planet, circling a medium sized star on the back side of the Milky Way – itself just one of billions of galaxies in an unimaginably huge universe. And yet, when we add it all up, it would appear that all of it is designed with us in mind. Everything in the history of the universe that has happened, and the incredible fact that it is so well balanced and fine-tuned, would lead even a skeptic to conclude that it is this way so we can live and thrive! In the words of Princeton theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson, “As we look into the universe and identify the many accidents of physics and astronomy that have worked together to our benefit, it almost seems as if the universe must, in some sense, have known that we were coming.” We would say, “They were no accidents at all!”
Is your God too small? In the coming days, meditate on what you have read in this article and the verses below, and think about the immensity of God and all He has created. Then thank Him that, despite His infinite greatness, He cares about you as an individual and was willing to come to this tiny earth as a man to save each of one us, His most valuable creation.
“He determines the number of the stars; He gives to all of them their names. Great is our Lord, and abundant in power; His understanding is beyond measure.” Psalm 147:4-5
“But God made the earth by his power, and he preserves it by his wisdom. With his own understanding, he stretched out the heavens.” Jeremiah 10:12
“For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities – his eternal power, and divine nature. So, they have no excuse for not knowing God.” Romans 1:20
“This is what God the Lord says – the Creator of the heavens, who stretches them out, who spreads out the earth with all that springs from it, who gives breath to its people, and life to those who walk on it:” Isaiah 42:5
It is I who made the earth, and created mankind upon it. I stretched out the heavens with My hands, And I ordained all their lights. Isaiah 45:12
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him not even one thing came into being that has come into being. John 1:1-3
And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us; and we saw His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. John 1:14
“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation: for by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones, or dominions, or rulers, or authorities – all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.” 1 Colossians 1:15-17
Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, as He already existed in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but emptied Himself by taking the form of a bond-servant and being born in the likeness of men. Philippians 2:5-7
By faith we understand that the universe has been created by a word from God so that the visible came into existence from the invisible. Hebrews 11:3
© 2026 Tal Davis